


Moving On

by shadowsong26



Series: Cartography [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Discussed canonical character death, Discussed character death, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-19
Updated: 2015-11-19
Packaged: 2018-05-02 08:47:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5242118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowsong26/pseuds/shadowsong26
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While Dean is in Purgatory and Sam is in Texas, Jody joins a grief support group and stumbles onto a case. Canon-compliant through 10x23.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moving On

**Author's Note:**

> This story deals heavily with grief, both Jody’s and the other characters’, and past character deaths and/or presumed deaths are discussed with some detail, though no one (other than the typical monster-victims one might expect from a regular MotW episode) dies on-page/during the story.
> 
> As with most of my fic, I will be including the two skipped years (between S5/S6 and S7/S8) with regard to any timelining/date information. It isn’t super-relevant here, but just so you know.
> 
> Many thanks to tackygoldring for being an awesomesauce beta.

Jody hadn’t been to a grief group for a long time. She’d gone pretty regularly for a while, starting a couple months after the...after the zombies, but as time went on, she hadn’t felt she’d needed it anymore. Not that she had stopped grieving, or ever would, but she had built herself a different kind of support network. She had her friends from church, and from work; and of course Bobby and his boys knew more about what she’d been through than anyone in the group possibly could. Even if they didn’t really talk about it all that much--or ever--just knowing there was someone out there who knew and understood helped.

So after about six months, she’d started going less and less often. By the time she helped Bobby out of that mess with Rufus Turner and dead bodies (in his basement _and_ in the yard, really, how the hell was she supposed to keep that over-eager FBI agent off Bobby’s ass when he was sitting on _two bodies_ ), she had stopped going completely.

And then Bobby had died, and that had been...that had been harder than she’d expected. Kiss or no kiss. Still, she’d had Sam and Dean, and her other friends. Even if most of them didn’t know how close she’d gotten to the town drunk, let alone why.

But now, it had been almost four months since the last time she’d heard from Sam or Dean. And when she tried calling, the numbers she had for them were out of service.

She didn’t want to think it--hated to think it--but she knew what kind of life they led. She knew they were probably…

It wasn’t the same, nowhere near the same, as losing Sean and Owen had been. But it still hurt like hell. It was almost as if, just when she was finally finding her feet again, finally starting to build a new life, a new family, it had all been ripped away from her again. And she didn’t even have bodies to bury--or burn; they would’ve wanted to be cremated. And she didn’t know any of their other friends to put together a makeshift wake or something, and properly say goodbye. They were just...gone.

After she’d spent three weeks getting an average of four hours’ sleep a night, she figured that she wasn’t okay anymore. She needed help again.

So now she was back, at a community center a couple towns over, pretty much the lowest she’d been in years. She’d picked a secular support group, even though she knew her pastor probably could have helped, even if the church didn’t have its own grief group, because...well, as much comfort as she took from her faith, sometimes it actually hurt more to hear the whole ‘divine will’ and ‘God’s plan’ speech yet again.

She didn’t recognize anyone here, which--well, that was probably good. The people she’d met before were probably like her; or like she had been until recently, anyway. They’d managed to move on, at least enough not to need this place anymore. Still, it might have been nice to see a familiar face or two, to ground her a little bit before having to face her demons. Or anyone else’s.

There were a half-dozen other people gathered, about an even split between men and women. A college-aged girl was hovering near the coffee dispenser, fiddling with a charm bracelet and wearing a cast on her other arm; on her left was a guy who must have been in his eighties, making quiet conversation with a woman around Jody’s age who had a prominent pink ribbon pinned to her jacket collar.

The rest of the group consisted of a scarred guy wearing gloves who was studiously avoiding everyone else’s eyes, a sixty-something woman who was feverishly knitting baby booties, and a kid about Sam’s age staring blankly out the window.

Jody took a deep breath, then headed into the room. She made her way over to the coffee machine, as much to give her hands something to do as because she actually wanted it.

She’d barely had time to do more than get her coffee and nod a greeting to the college girl when the group leader joined them. And here, at last, was a familiar face--Bill was a therapist with a small practice over in Brandon; he’d led the group last time she’d been there, too.

“Hello, everyone,” he said, his voice low and warm and comforting. “Why don’t we all sit down, and--it looks like we have someone new this week, so shall we introduce ourselves?”

The group found chairs and formed a loose circle. The college girl, sitting to Bill’s right, introduced herself first. She waved her casted hand a little. “Christine.”

“Ethan,” was the older man.

“Hello, I’m Olivia,” said the lady with the ribbon.

“Nick,” the scarred man said quietly, without looking up.

“I’m Lorraine,” the older woman said, still knitting.

“Jody, hi,” she said.

“James,” the younger guy said dully.

“I’m Dr. Bill Anders,” he finished. “Welcome, everyone.” After a short pause, he continued. “Why don’t we start with how we’ve been coping since last week? Would anyone like to start?”

There was another brief pause, then Christine waved her casted arm in the air a little again.

“All right, Christine?” Bill prompted.

She took a deep, shaky breath, then said, “I keep...I keep seeing him, everywhere. Like...and...and he seems to _miss_ me, h-he doesn’t...a-and that almost makes it _w-worse,_ that he doesn’t hate me, even though it was...I m-mean, _I_ was the drunk one, _I_ called him for a ride, a-and...and he _died,_ and I just…” She indicated her cast. “It wasn’t fair. It was my fault, why should--”

“It wasn’t,” Olivia cut in. “We’ve told you before, sweetheart, the accident wasn’t your fault.”

“But he wouldn’t even have been out there if I hadn’t...if I hadn’t…” Christine looked away, toying with her charm bracelet again.

“That doesn’t make it your _fault,_ ” she insisted, with the faintest bite of irritation to her voice.

Bill picked up on that note, too. “I think,” he said mildly, “what Olivia means is that you should try to focus your blame on the person who was _actually_ at fault, rather than yourself.”

“Sorry, Christine,” she said. “Yes, that’s what I meant. I didn’t mean to snap.”

“And what if you don’t have anyone to blame?” Ethan asked quietly.

“Then blame fate, or the universe. Genetics, I don’t know.” Olivia shook her head.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure we can all agree the universe sucks,” James said from his corner, which won a few smiles, with varying levels of shadow and sarcasm, from the rest of the group.

“I-I guess...I guess maybe you’re right,” Christine said, bringing the topic back to her own guilt over her accident. “Except...except no one in th-the other car was drunk. Just me.”

“But you weren’t driving, dear,” Lorraine pointed out. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“I guess.” She still didn’t sound completely convinced, but she clearly didn’t want to talk about it anymore.

“Why don’t we move on from here?” Bill said. “Ethan, how have things been for you since last week? You said that your daughter was going to come up for a visit. How did that go?”

From there, they all took their turns, discussing how they were coping and who they’d lost. Ethan’s wife had died, about six months ago; she’d had Alzheimer’s, and he’d been her primary caretaker for the last five years. Jody sort of got the impression that he didn’t really know what to do with himself anymore, without Marian to look after. His daughter’s visit was the first time they’d met in person since the funeral--or it would have been; his grandson had gotten sick and she’d had to cancel at the last minute.

Pretty much everyone spoke after that--except Nick, who just listened without looking directly at anyone. Jody kept quiet, too, realizing just a hair too late that she probably should’ve sorted out ahead of time how the hell she was going to talk about things without talking about...Things.

But listening to the others helped. At the very least, it reminded her that she wasn’t alone.

Lorraine approached her as they were putting the chairs away. “You didn’t say very much today, dear. Is everything all right? I know sometimes these things can be overwhelming.”

Jody blinked, and shook her head. “Not overwhelming, really, just new.”

“I suppose you don’t know all our stories yet,” she said.

She shook her head again. “All I know is what everyone was saying today.” Which was enough to put everything together for most of them. Olivia’s sister had died around the same time Sam and Dean disappeared, breast cancer. And James had just lost his grandfather, who had practically raised him and his little sister. Shannon had been working with a grief counselor at her school, but James didn’t have any system in place like that, so he’d come here. “I figure people tell as much as they’re okay with sharing. I’ll learn the rest eventually, when they’re ready.”

“Well, that’s true,” the older woman said. “Sometimes it takes a while for people to open up. And you’re not the only one.”

Jody nodded. Lorraine hadn’t given that much detail, either, but had mentioned her son-in-law a few times. From context, Jody was pretty sure she’d lost her daughter. And then there was Nick, with his scars and his uneasy withdrawal.

Lorraine glanced over at him, following her train of thought. “Such a shame, about poor Nick--he didn’t talk very much, last week, either, but I do know that his wife and baby were murdered just before Christmas a few years ago, and there was a fire. That’s how he got all those terrible scars.”

Jody winced. Lorraine hadn’t exactly given her a timeline, but if the fire had happened after the murders, when he was just starting to get on his feet again...she knew that feeling, all too well. No wonder he barely spoke or looked at anyone. “And...and what about you? If it’s not...if it’s all right for me to ask.”

“Oh,” Lorraine looked down at her booties. “Well, dear, my daughter--she was about your age, you know--she...well, all I have left of her now is my little grandson, and she fought so hard to have him...”

She could fill in the blanks there--Lorraine’s daughter, dying in childbirth, and Lorraine trying to fill the void with... “I’m so sorry.”

“Thank you,” she said, and her needles started clicking again. “And you, dear? Why are you here?”

“I…” She trailed off, because some things--even the parts that wouldn’t make her sound crazy--were just a little too big for words. “My...well, my husband and...and son have...it’s been a few years. But I just recently...a very good friend of mine, and his two sons, they all…”

“Oh my, that’s so awful,” Lorraine said, her needles stopping for an instant. “So many losses, and you’re so young, too…” She shook her head and started up again.

“Thank you,” Jody said. “For telling me all of that. And I...I appreciate the sympathetic ear.” Maybe it wasn’t exactly right for Lorraine to share what she had about Nick but she appreciated the knowledge. And she could almost understand where Lorraine was coming from. Especially if Jody reminded her of her dead daughter.

“It’s what we’re here for, isn’t it?” Lorraine replied. “To comfort one another in our misery.”

“Yeah,” she said.

She said her goodbyes and headed out the door; it was time for her to head back to work, anyway. She already felt at least a little--well, if not better, then less miserable. It was a start anyway. And with time…

With time, things would get better. Just like they had before.

 

* * *

 

Three days after that first support group meeting, Jody got called out to a murder scene.

Those didn’t happen all that much, not here in Sioux Falls or the surrounding county--only about seven or eight total, most years. And the murders that did happen were typically pretty obvious, so far as who did it and why.

This one...this one wasn’t.

She got out to the edge of the woods where the body had been found. The crime scene people were finishing up with their photos, and after a brief confirmation from the head tech--Allison Wilkes, she’d been working with her for years--she crouched down and pulled back the sheet covering the victim.

It was Christine.

Christine, from the group, with the cast on her arm and the tinkling silver charm bracelet and the dead boyfriend and the car accident she blamed herself for, as if just by riding in his car drunk she’d caused it.

_Oh, hell._

Christine’s hair was a rat’s nest, half-out of its ponytail holder; her jeans were torn and caked in mud, and she was missing her right shoe. Still, despite all that, her body was posed with obvious care. Her eyes were closed, and her hands were folded peacefully, as if in prayer, over the gaping hole in her chest.

“Looks like she ran,” her deputy said.

“Not fast enough,” Jody said, grateful for the comment for jerking her out of the _oh God, this is someone I know_ knee-jerk reaction. For all she hadn’t known Christine _well,_ not by a long shot, it was still there. She put the sheet back over Christine’s face and stood back up. “We got an ID yet?”

“Yeah. Ali found her wallet about twenty feet that way,” he said, pointing. “Christine Wilcox, twenty-one, senior at the university.”

Jody nodded. “Any witnesses?”

“None so far,” he said. “But we’re looking.”

“Who found the body?”

“Daniel Jefferson,” he said.

Christ. Someone else she knew, and pretty well. Danny was a high school freshman; he and his parents lived in Jody’s neighborhood. A minor, but since he was still a witness, not a suspect yet, they could do at least the first interview without calling them, save some time. Someone was probably already on that.

“Right. You got his statement yet?” she asked.

“Mark’s working on it. Doesn’t sound like he saw anyone hanging around the body, just sort of tripped over it when he was out for a run. He’s pretty shaken up about the whole thing.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet.” Even if he probably hadn’t known Christine, and even if this wasn’t all that gruesome as far as bodies went, it was still a hell of a thing to find one. “You called his parents?” Because just because they weren’t _required_ to inform the Jeffersons didn’t mean they _shouldn’t._

Her deputy shook his head. “Kid called them before he called us. Dad’s out of town, mom’s trying to get out of work to get out here.”

“All right,” she said. “Let me know if they want to talk to me, finish getting Daniel’s statement, and see if you can find any other witnesses. I’ll notify the victim’s family.” Which, _God,_ she hated that part, but it wasn’t something she was going to pawn off on one of her deputies. “Allison, you can babysit the body ‘til the coroner gets here?”

“Will do, Sheriff,” the tech called, without looking up from whatever she was dragging up out of the mud.

Jody nodded to Allison and the deputies, then headed back to her office to identify and track down Christine’s next of kin.

 

The less said about notifying Christine’s parents, the better. Her dad had asked if she’d done this to herself, which...that had been a hard question to hear. He’d obviously noticed how hard she was taking her boyfriend’s death. At least Jody could give him some sort of comfort on _that_ score. She doubted Christine could’ve damaged her own chest that bad, and then there was the posing…

Still, she was more than grateful when she could escape their house and head for the morgue, where the coroner was ready for her.

Dr. Franke was another long-term coworker of hers; he’d been the chief medical examiner for the county longer than she’d been Sheriff. He had mercifully put Christine’s body away in one of his drawers, and was waiting for her with just his rough notes and tape recorder on his desk, waiting for transcription for his formal report.

He talked her through the basics pretty quick--no ligature marks, or any other evidence she’d been restrained. She had probably been running and tripped, and had what looked like possible defensive wounds on her arms and hands--but those could as easily have been caused by tree branches when she ran through the woods. Cause of death was officially being written down as massive trauma leading to heart failure. Even though the actual ‘failure’ was more that it was no longer where it was supposed to be.

Because whoever had killed Christine had ripped it clean out of her chest.

“I can’t match the wound to any weapon,” Dr. Franke said. “At least not yet, but I’ll keep trying.” He started to say something else, then hesitated for a second before shaking his head.

“Come on, spit it out,” Jody said.

“Well, it’s just...if I didn’t know any better, I’d say someone did this with their bare hands. Everything looks _torn,_ more than cut. Even the skin. Even the _aorta._ ”

 _Shit._ “Well, keep looking,” she said. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out. Anything other than the heart missing?”

He shook his head again. “No, everything else is intact. Weirdly neat, even, considering how rough the actual organ removal was…”

Pleasant thought, that one. And all the more evidence that…

 _Shit. Shit, shit, shit._ “All right, keep me posted,” she said, then waved and headed over to her office to figure out how the hell _she_ was going to write this one up.

Because, the more Jody looked at the details, the more she thought about everything involved in this mess, the more she thought…

She was in way, way, _way_ over her head. She knew that much for damn sure. Because it was increasingly obvious that this was not an ordinary-cop kind of problem to solve. This was the kind of thing where, not that long ago, she would’ve called on Bobby or Sam or Dean.

Except Bobby and Sam and Dean were...

She closed her eyes, took a breath, and squelched those thoughts, and the grief and fear they inspired, as far down deep inside herself as possible. She then made the strongest cup of coffee she could and settled in to try and figure out what the hell kind of monster might’ve killed Christine.

The problem was, she really didn’t have a clue where to _start._ But then she thought--ghost, it could have been a ghost. Christine _had_ mentioned seeing her boyfriend everywhere. But could a ghost actually do that? Rip someone’s heart right out of their chest? Especially without damaging anything else in its way?

Still, it was worth a shot. On the other hand, a quick records check told Jody the kid had been cremated. And that was the way to stop a ghost, wasn’t it? So, chances were, it wasn’t actually Christine’s dead boyfriend.

With her one bit of natural inspiration exhausted, she tried to research other possible causes, digging through the internet and some of Bobby’s old books. But just about the only thing she could come up with that ripped out hearts and ate them was werewolves, and last night had been the new moon. There was also something called a Lamia, but there’d only ever been one outside Greece ever, according to Bobby’s notes. And no one had found any claws or anything at the scene, so she could probably rule that out, too. Granted, she didn’t know for _sure_ that whatever she was dealing with was actually _eating_ the hearts, but she sort of doubted it was taking them just for the hell of it.

There was a lot she didn’t know for sure. She didn’t even know for sure this _was_ Sam and Dean and Bobby’s kind of thing. For all she knew, it could be an ordinary human serial killer. That was super-strong. And used either his bare hands or some unidentified weapon to rip out his victims’ hearts. Without damaging anything else in the chest cavity.

...okay, yeah, it almost definitely _was_ their kind of thing. The problem was, she didn’t have enough information, not about any of this, and her only sources were--

Everyone she knew who could help her was dead. She’d somehow have to solve this one on her own.

 

* * *

 

The next support group meeting, four days later, was...Jody was not looking forward to it. But she headed back despite her misgivings. After all, she had felt better, at least a little, after last week’s meeting, and quitting after one session just plain didn’t feel right. No matter what else was going on in the world.

But, at the same time, she was dreading it. All of them were already...well, maybe not at the _absolute_ lowest they could be, because sometimes you had to crawl a few steps up to talk to people at all when something horrible happened. But they sure as hell weren’t doing well. And now one of their own had just died. Plus, there was the very good chance that, if anyone had figured out what she did for a living, there’d be awful questions she couldn’t answer.

And, sure enough, before the meeting even started, James approached her by the coffee machine, fiddling with a little hoop in his ear. “Hey, Jody.”

“Hey.” She finished fixing her coffee and waited for him to go on, hoping against hope this conversation wasn’t heading where she thought it was.

“Uh. Yeah. Look, I know we’re not supposed to...um, sorry, but I need to...you’re the sheriff, right? Over in Sioux Falls?” he finally got out.

Oh, hell.

Jody sighed, set her coffee down, and nodded. “Yeah, I am.”

“I just...is...was Christine really murdered?”

Shit, damn it, shit. “I can’t tell you anything,” she said. “One way or the other.”

He nodded. “I know, I get that, it’s just...like, my little sister goes to school on the same campus. I mean, she didn’t actually know her or anything, but…I don’t know, everyone there’s pretty messed up.”

“I’m sure they are,” she said. “And I’d liked to tell you something that might help, but…”

“You can’t discuss an ongoing investigation,” he finished for her. “I know, I know. I watch cop shows. I get it. It’s just...I dunno, I sort of hoped…” He stopped fiddling with his earring, using the coffee machine to keep his nervous hands busy instead.

“I’m sorry, James,” she said.

“It’s okay,” he said, forcing a smile, then turned away just as Bill came in and they all found their seats.

The circle was achingly smaller than it had been last week.

“I want to have a moment of silence,” Bill said quietly, after they’d all settled in and he had their attention. “For Christine.”

They all bowed their heads, and Jody closed her eyes and listened to clock ticking on the wall and the others’ breathing. She offered up a silent prayer for Christine and her family; along with a second one, that she could find and put down the monster that did this to her--to all of them--before it hurt anyone else.

After the minute was up, they all started moving again more or less as one, looking up and shifting a little in their chairs, but it was another two or three minutes before anyone actually spoke.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Ethan said abruptly, breaking the silence. “She was...she had already been through so much pain, and she was so _young_...how could this have possibly happened?”

“There are monsters out there,” Nick said softly--the first time he’d actually talked, at least in Jody’s hearing, since introducing himself last week.

And she knew what he meant by it. His entire family, including his infant child, had been murdered, and at Christmas. Even if there _was_ a difference--and she knew there was--Jody would probably agree that the bastard who did it was a monster. Human or otherwise.

But despite knowing all of that, it still sent a little chill down her spine. Because _she_ knew, even if no one else did, that it was probably a completely _in_ human monster that had killed Christine. And she was the only person anywhere close to equipped to take the thing out, and that wasn’t really saying all that much.

“It still doesn’t make sense,” Ethan insisted. “When Marian--when Marian...passed, I was...she’d been so sick for so long. And I know we make fun, and we talk about how fate and the universe are unreasonably, unknowably cruel. But what the hell kind of universe allows something like that to happen to an innocent girl like Christine?”

Nick fell silent again, dropping his eyes back down to his gloves.

Jody found herself wondering why he was wearing them--it was only early September, and nowhere near cold enough for them yet, not even outside. _Probably just covering up more scars,_ she decided.

“If we knew the answer to that, dear, I don’t think any of us would be here,” Lorraine said.

 

* * *

 

When Jody got called out to another murder three days later, she prayed it was a coincidence, that it was just another of her rare but completely mundane ones. Even though she knew the chances of that were all but nonexistent. The timing was too exact, the crime scene was less than half a mile from where Christine had been found, her deputy had flat-out said, “Jody, we’ve got another one...”

Still, some small, unrealistic part of her hoped that maybe, at the very least, this one would be a stranger.

He wasn’t.

Ethan was laid out with obvious care, just the way Christine had been. He was bald, and it was less muddy, and he probably hadn’t been able to run as far, so he even looked less unkempt and rushed. His eyes were closed, his hands folded, he looked serene. At peace.

Dr. Franke gave her the same report as last time, almost word for word--no identifiable weapon, nothing damaged except the heart was ripped out of his chest.

At that point, Jody had to step back and reconsider her options. Even if she hadn’t already ruled out a ghost, Ethan’s wife hadn’t died violently. Everything she’d read said that was sort of a prerequisite. Besides, even if she had, what were the odds that two completely unrelated ghosts killed the people they’d been closest to in the exact same way, in the exact same stretch of woods, exactly a week apart?

No. This was some kind of monster. And it was stalking her grief support group.

 _Or,_ she realized, her heart sinking at the thought, _it’s hiding in plain sight--it’s pretending to be one of us._

It made a sick sort of sense--by joining the group, this thing, whatever it was, could observe its victims for as long as it took to figure out the best way to isolate them. It could gain their trust to lure them away, or just learn their habits and find the best time and place to ambush them and drive them towards its preferred killing ground. If she’d been after a human serial killer, she would have been absolutely positive that was how he was hunting. Why should a not-human serial killer be any different?

The question was who?

Obviously, she could rule out Christine and Ethan and herself--she’d probably know if she was ripping someone’s heart out once a week, and the others had clearly not done this to themselves. Probably Bill was out, too, or the pattern would have started way earlier.

That left Lorraine, Olivia, James, and Nick.

And she didn’t know any of their last names. Running background checks on the four of them was going to be a hell of a job.

Jody sighed, made more coffee, and got to work.

James was the easiest to rule out--unlike the others, he’d given enough detail in group that she was able to find his grandfather’s obituary in the _Leader._ The obit mentioned James and Shannon, grandchildren, as survivors; confirming Shannon went to the same school as Christine didn’t take much longer.

Olivia was a little bit harder, but still checked out in the end--her sister, Denise, had died four months ago at Sioux Falls General, metastatic breast cancer. Going from the last names, she found the website of the law firm where Olivia worked. And, since she was the head of their HR department, the website had her picture on it.

With all that put together, Jody decided she could rule James and Olivia out. The two of them had verifiable histories going back at least a decade, and nothing either had said was an obvious, red-flag sort of lie. And, like Bill, if they’d been monsters for very long, there would’ve been more bodies—or, if something had turned one of them into a monster just recently, _it_ would have left its own trail for her to follow.

Lorraine, on the other hand, she was less sure of. There were no women who’d died in any labor and delivery ward within a fifty mile radius in the last year. And, judging by the size of the things she was knitting, her grandson probably wasn’t more than six months old. That didn’t necessarily mean she was lying, of course--she’d never said her daughter was local, and it would take a while to sift through an entire nation of public records to try and find a woman that matched. But it was worth keeping an eye on Lorraine, just in case. At least until Jody found her dead daughter. Especially since there had been that slightly suspect gossip she’d shared, and she’d moved here less than a year ago.

But then there was Nick.

His story was actually verifiable, to a point. More easily than Lorraine’s, anyway. There was a Nick Cross out of Delaware, a high school history teacher whose wife and son were victims five and six of the still-unidentified Chesapeake Ripper, back in December of 2008. It lined up with the timeline Lorraine had given her, more or less. But Cross had vanished five months later, and was believed to have committed suicide. There wasn’t any record of any fire.

In fact, there wasn’t any record of the man after May of 2009 at _all._

Of course, to be fair, if he _was_ Nick Cross, he could’ve gotten caught in a fire sometime after his disappearance. And that disappearance _could_ have been an attempt to heal via a clean break, or something like that. But then there was the far more damning fact that no one around here had seen Nick until about two weeks before Christine’s death. And he didn’t have any kind of paper trail she could find--if he was paying for anything, he was paying cash only.

Whatever inconsistencies there were in Lorraine’s story, they were nothing compared to the gaping holes in Nick’s. Hell, maybe even the out-of-season gloves he wore were covering up something more sinister than scars--claws or something, designed to rip out human hearts.

Jody closed her eyes and turned everything over in her head a couple more times, increasingly convinced she was on to something here. It was all circumstantial, but there was a hell of a lot of it. She’d built cases on less as a cop.

 _On the other hand,_ she reminded herself, _imagine what Sam and Dean might’ve looked like to someone doing what I’m doing now._

Okay. She was sure of exactly one thing--Nick was involved in this. But, after she took a breath and reconsidered all the evidence, she knew she couldn’t really be positive about exactly _how._ He could be tracking the same monster she was just as easily as actually _being_ the monster. If he knew what it was, and how it was hunting, joining the group to watch everyone and ferret it out made just as much sense as observing a victim pool. So, she needed proof, one way or the other, before she could act.

Well, she had no idea where he was right now, but she knew damn well where he’d be in four days. She could follow him after the meeting, and find out how the hell he was involved.

And then…

Well, she might be new to monsters, but she wasn’t about to let this thing run rampant in her town.

One way or another, once she figured Nick out, she’d put the monster down.

 

* * *

 

Her first step, four days later, was to follow Nick after the meeting to see what she could dig up. At a bare minimum, she wanted to find out where he was staying. Even without a warrant to toss the place--and she didn’t want to involve the rest of her department until she was sure what she was dealing with, if at all--that might clue her in on whether he was a hunter or a monster.

The group had been subdued this week, with everyone talking about Ethan and Christine and not-so-subtly watching Jody to see how she reacted to the various rumors they were proposing. She kept her face as still as she could, hopefully not giving away anything she shouldn’t. And hoping that they were _just_ watching her for clues how the investigation was going, not jumping to the conclusion that _she_ was somehow involved in the murders. Although, if they were, she couldn’t exactly blame them; she _had_ joined the group right before Christine’s death. That wasn’t exactly a small part of her evidence for her own suspect.

But then, at last, it was over. And, if anyone did suspect her, she didn’t see any actual signs of it. She put those worries from her mind as best she could, and tailed Nick away from the community center. It was a quiet night, with just a touch of fall finally entering in the air. Somewhere in the distance, Jody heard a baby cry, and a dog bark, and a car door slam, but other than that, things were almost eerily silent.

Tailing him was borderline ridiculously easy--easy enough, almost, for her to start suspecting it was a trap of some kind. Wherever Nick was headed, he was walking, which meant she could walk, too. That was the luckiest break--she’d make less noise, and wouldn’t have to worry about headlights. Plus, it made her more maneuverable if he knew how to dodge a tail.

But if he did know how, he either hadn’t picked up on her or didn’t want to try and dodge. Which could mean trap, or it could just mean he didn’t care. He kept to the shadows as much as possible, with his head down and his hands in his pockets.

And then she saw _her._

Across the street, matching Nick step for step, was a dark-haired woman in a bloodstained white nightgown.

Nick seemed to spot her at the same moment Jody did, or at least he sped up when she did.

The woman across the street did the same. “Nick,” she called.

He didn’t answer.

“Nick, I’m here. This isn’t a dream. It’s real.”

“Leave me alone,” he said.

“Nick, I love you.”

“Please, just...please,” he said, his voice breaking just a little.

The woman crossed the street in an eyeblink, to walk beside him.

He stopped, trying to turn away. “Sarah, please…”

She reached over for his hand. “I love you. I miss you.”

 _Okay. I’m pretty sure he’s not the monster._ And it didn’t look like he knew how to defend himself or fight her off, either. If he did, he probably would have done _something_ by now, whatever shape the thing was taking. It was one hell of a coincidence, but it looked like she’d read Nick totally wrong. He actually was a complete and total innocent.

And a monster was about to eat his heart, unless she did something _now._

Jody stepped out into the light. “Hey!”

The woman whirled in a flash, and for an instant, Jody saw claws and icy, angry eyes before Sarah’s face rippled, starting to shift into _Sean’s_ and then she--it--whatever it was hissed and lunged at her.

She sidestepped, just barely missing being grazed by the thing’s claws. But--hey, at least it had left Nick alone. “Run!” she called to him, pulling out her sidearm. It probably wouldn’t do any real, lasting damage to the monster, but hopefully it would at least annoy it long enough for the two of them to get the hell out of dodge.

“Come on,” she said, when she passed Nick. “My car’s a block away.”

He didn’t need telling twice.

She turned and shot at the Sean-Sarah thing, hitting it square in the chest. It hissed again, stumbling for a pace, but didn’t drop.

But, just like she’d hoped, that stumble gave her and Nick a few seconds’ head start, which was all they needed to escape. They made it to her car and she slammed on the gas, driving away as fast as she could. For a few minutes, she could see the creature chasing them in the rearview mirror, then it stopped. And, when she checked one last time for good measure after a turn, it was gone completely.

She kept driving for a few minutes anyway, just to be safe, then slowed down and stopped.

“You okay?” she asked, turning to check Nick, see if he had any obvious injuries.

He didn’t seem hurt, but he was shaking a little. “You...d-did you follow me?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Sorry, I...I thought maybe you...never mind. I was wrong. Are you okay?”

“I thought it was…” He gripped his wrist tight, where Sean-Sarah had touched it, and shivered.

“Yeah,” she said. “But you’re okay? It didn’t hurt you?”

He shook his head. “No. N-no, I’m not...she’s just been...she’s been following me for a couple days. I thought…” He trailed off, and shivered again.

Jody blinked at Nick. For a newbie, he was taking the whole shapeshifting dead wife thing awfully well. Well, he was freaked out, sure, but not quite in an ‘I just saw a ghost’ sort of way. It was almost as if this _wasn’t_ the first time he’d run into a monster.

What the hell was it about him that made him so damn hard for her to read?

Well, only one way to find out. “I gotta say, you don’t seem all that surprised about any of this.”

He tensed a little. “I...uh, I guess not.”

When he didn’t say anything else, she phrased the question a little clearer. “This ain’t your first rodeo, is it.”

He looked away. “Uh. No, not exactly...except, it sort of is. It’s...complicated.”

 _Isn’t it always?_ “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours?” she suggested, realizing the instant it was out of her mouth how ridiculous it sounded.

Nick smiled a little at that. “I...yeah, I guess.” He was quiet for a minute, then said, “I’ve never...uh, when I say it’s complicated, it’s…”

“Would it be easier if I asked you questions?” Jody offered, after he visibly struggled for the words for a minute. She could handle that, be the cop for another minute or two. That thin layer of professional distance might make it easier for her to hear, even, especially if his story was anywhere near as awful as hers.

He looked relieved, and nodded. “Yeah. I...I think so.”

She thought for a minute, trying to decide where to start. “Is...the guy who killed your family, was he…?”

“No. He was...as far as I know, he was just a...just a regular human serial killer.” He smiled again, without mirth, and shook his head. “Just.”

Jody bowed her head. She couldn’t decide whether that would be easier or harder to face, knowing that there were non-human monsters out there and having your life ruined by something...well, at least _relatively_ normal. Either way, there was no ‘just’ about it.

“What happened then?” she asked, after a few minutes. “Something else came after you?”

He nodded. “It...uh, it was a few months later,” he said. “I...I started...hearing things, seeing things, and then…” He trailed off again, then, without her prompting this time, said, “I didn’t get scarred in a fire.”

“Okay,” she said.

He took a deep, shaky breath, then said, “I was...I was possessed.”

And, suddenly, everything made sense--all the behavior that had seemed suspicious before, marking him out as either a monster or a hunter, and all the indicators that he wasn’t either…

He’d been a _victim_ before. To be fair, she didn’t know much about possession; fortunately, she’d never come up against it directly and she _really_ hoped this was as close as she ever got. But from what she’d read...the thing that had hurt him would have used his face to hurt _other_ people, and God alone knew who might have seen him--or the thing that looked like him--and now might be _after_ him, because of it. On top of that, his demon might have left some kind of actual evidence for actual cops to sift through. And no matter how many times he tried to say it wasn’t his fault, who would believe him?

No wonder she had misread him so completely. “Shit. I’m sorry.”

He nodded. “It...uh, he held on to me for a year. I don’t...I don’t remember a lot, but I do know that I...I did...things. Awful things.”

“ _He_ did them,” she said. “He just...used your body for it. Right?”

Nick shrugged one shoulder. “Maybe. I don’t know. I mean, yes, technically, but it doesn’t...it _feels_ like I did them.”

She didn’t push the point, not now. Maybe another time, if they talked about this ever again.

After a few moments of silence, he cleared his throat and said, “What...uh, what about you? How’d you learn about...about all this?”

“Zombies,” she said flatly, closing her eyes against the memory. “My first...it was zombies. And it was…” She swallowed, and forced herself to push forward. Nick had bared his soul to her, after all. The least she could do was return the favor. Especially since it had been her idea to begin with.

“My son had...Owen had...he had leukemia. He...he died on February 22nd, 2008. But then...two years...two years later…” She took a deep, shaky breath, and went on. “I mean, at first, it felt like a miracle. He was _back,_ just like I remembered him, happy and--and _healthy,_ and...and he wasn’t the only one, there were a dozen others, all over town, people we loved and lost were _back,_ and I didn’t...my husband and I didn’t...we didn’t question the miracle. No one did.” She bowed her head, eyes still closed, Sam’s gunshot ringing in her ears all over again. “We should have,” she whispered. “After...after five days, all the...a-all the people who had--all the zombies...they all turned. Owen...Owen _ate_...he ate my h-husband. S--a friend, a friend of mine, he had to...had to shoot him. Put--put him down.”

And it hadn’t been Owen, not really, she knew that. She hadn’t needed Sam to tell her that, once she saw him standing there, covered in blood.

But, at the same time, it still _was_ Owen, and Sean had _died,_ and...and knowing it was just a thing that happened to look like her son didn’t make it any easier to cope with. It never had.

For a long moment after she finished, they just sat there, silent and unhappy, and when she looked up at Nick again, he was...

Oh, God, the look on his face. “...your demon was involved,” she guessed.

He flinched and looked down at his hands again before nodding. “I don’t...I’m not sure, I don’t r-remember, but I...the...the timing…I’m pretty sure that...yeah.”

“It wasn’t you,” she said, as firmly as she could manage. “Okay? It wasn’t. It was him. And...I don’t know, it might not be the same for everyone your demon hurt but...at least _I_ don’t blame you, for whatever that’s worth.”

He didn’t look convinced, but he nodded again anyway and changed the subject before she could ask or add anything else. “So...so, uh, what...what do we do now?”

“Now?”

“I’ve never...I’ve never been on...on this side of things,” he admitted. “And I...I kind of want to just...but I know that this...whatever was...whatever decided to look like...like Sarah this time, it...it’s what killed…”

She nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I think so.”

“And it’s...it’s after me now. So...so, whether I want to be or not, I’m…”

“We can try and hide you,” she offered. And she sure as hell wouldn’t blame him if he took her up on that offer. “Or at least get you out of town. I can probably figure this thing out on my own.”

He hesitated, then shook his head. “If I do that, I’m just setting it on someone else.” He shivered. “Enough...enough people have...have died because of me.”

And, yeah, that was a supremely unhealthy way to look at things, and if he did run, and the thing targeted someone else, it wouldn’t be his fault any more than the people his demon had killed were. But Jody knew when pushing a sore subject would do the exact opposite of good. And she knew how much fixing something terrible could help with coping with things that couldn’t be fixed at all. At least it had been that way for her--work had helped a lot, after the first time Owen died. And, after the second, she could at least help clean up Bobby’s messes and toss him or the boys a tip every now and then.

“Okay,” she said. “I guess the first thing we do is figure out what this thing is. And how to kill it.”

He nodded. “Okay.” He gave a flickering ghost of a smile. “Research. I know how to research.”

“Great,” she said, then started the car again, heading back to her place and her mountain of notes and unfinished research.

 

* * *

 

“I think I found something.”

Jody looked up and across the table at Nick. “Yeah?”

He nodded. He had a worn book about minor Greek gods open--one of Bobby’s--and passed it over to her. “Take a look at this.”

There was a faded Greek vase-painting style portrait of a woman on one side of the page, labeled with her name. “Oizys?” Jody asked. The painting didn’t show claws, like she’d seen before, but that didn’t necessarily rule her out. It wasn’t like vase paintings were known for their photorealism, after all.

He nodded. “Greek goddess--or, demigod, really--of misery.”

She skimmed the page, and--okay, yeah, a lot of this did seem to line up with what they’d seen of this thing so far. And a goddess of misery eating her way through a grief support group made _way_ too much sense for Jody’s liking. “It says here she amplifies her victims’ pain and then lifts it out of them and swallows it, leaving them at peace.”

“That would probably track with eating hearts, right?” he said. “I-if ‘leaving them at peace’ means…”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.” Christine and Ethan had sure as hell been carefully posed to look peaceful when they were found, and it wasn’t like ‘at peace’ was an uncommon euphemism for death. “You know anything about killing gods?”

“Uh. Not...really,” he said, rubbing a little awkwardly at his right arm. “I...when…”

“Your demon killed a god?” she guessed.

He flinched and looked away. “...yeah. He...uh, he didn’t like them very much. Gods, I mean. Worse than humans, he said, and he...he _really_ didn’t like us.”

Jody nodded. “You remember how he did it?”

He shivered. “With his--with _my_ \--bare hands.”

She started to insist, yet again, that it hadn’t been him, but something told her it wouldn’t help. So, instead, she sighed and said, “Somehow, I doubt we’d be able to pull that off this time.”

He relaxed a little, visibly grateful she’d taken the black comedy route. “Probably not.”

There was a brief, awkward silence, then Jody said, “I don’t know all that much, either. I mean, I did fight a god once. Not by myself, but I was there. I helped some friends of mine summon him. But there was a...a specific weapon we used. They had to get it made special for Chronos. Probably Oizys will need something like that, too. What do you think?”

Nick nodded. “Yeah, that’s...that makes sense. And, uh...based on some of this other stuff I’ve been reading, most likely some kind of wooden stake, probably dipped in a particular kind of blood. Most gods seem to be...there’s a pattern.”

“Well, at least we know what to look for,” Jody said.

She passed the book back over to him, and returned to her laptop. The two of them searched in relative silence for a minute, then--

“Hey, I think this might be it!” she said.

He looked up. “Yeah?”

“A poplar stake, dipped in the blood of a mourner.” She turned the computer around so he could read it.

“Okay,” he said. “Uh. Does poplar grow around here?”

“If it doesn’t, we can probably get lucky at the lumber yard, but I think so,” she said, and Google confirmed it for her. “All right. We find poplar, one of us bleeds on it, and then...what?”

Nick considered. “We draw her out,” he said, closing the book. “Before she targets one of...one of the others.”

“With you so far.” Though how exactly they were going to manage that without getting themselves killed...

“I should be the bait,” he said. “She’s already...she already singled me out.”

Jody frowned. “Yeah, but I probably pissed her off, chasing her away from you like that.” Not that she really liked the idea of _either_ of them playing bait anyway, but it wasn’t like she had a better idea.

“You also have a better chance of actually…you’ll probably have better luck actually taking her out than I would,” he pointed out.

Which was fair. Nick had been a high school teacher before his life had gone to hell. Even if Jody wasn’t a real hunter, and didn’t have all that much experience with killing monsters, she _was_ a cop. That gave her a bit of a leg up as far as the whole violence and bad guys thing was concerned. And, more importantly, she’d probably lose that advantage if Oizys was working her way under her skin.

“All right. You’re sure you’re up for this?”

He shrugged and fidgeted with the end of his sleeve for a minute. “There’s not much she can say to me that I don’t already say to myself. I can hold it together long enough for you to stab her.”

Jody nodded. “All right.”

They headed for a nearby lumber yard which--well, they had to straight-up steal a couple planks to carve stakes out of, which wasn’t exactly ideal. But it did have poplar in stock, and it was faster and easier than finding a tree, since neither of them was any kind of botanist or anything. Jody carved one stake for herself, and a second for Nick to carry, just in case. Although, judging by the way he’d reacted to Oizys before…

Still, better safe than sorry.

A coin toss had them using Jody’s blood to finish the weapons, and they headed out to the woods near where Christine and Ethan’s bodies had been found to try and find the goddess.

 

* * *

 

Of course, all of their prep turned out to be completely useless. They wandered around the woods until it was nearly dawn, but the goddess didn’t show. Granted, they’d had all of two hours to search by the time they finished researching and making the weapons, but still.

And the next night had the same result, even though they were able to start a hell of a lot earlier. No Oizys.

Jody picked Nick up outside the community center for another attempt on the third night, and could tell they were in for a rough one. Because it was pretty damn obvious to her that, for all Nick kept insisting he could handle his end of things, he was having trouble coping. He was even more closed-off and inwardly focused than usual, and he clearly hadn’t slept--hell, he looked more exhausted than she felt, and he didn’t even have the excuse of a full-time day job on top of all this.

“You sure you don’t want to switch jobs?” she asked. None of this was easy, for either of them, but she might actually be in a more stable place than he was, and better able to resist the goddess, at least right now.

He shook his head. “I’m sure. I can handle it, I promise. I’m just…” He fiddled with a hole at the end of his sleeve. “I keep my head down, you know? Trying to draw attention feels…”

“Yeah,” she said. “I get it. Just saying, I’m happy to play bait tonight if you want.”

“No, I’m good.” He closed his eyes. “Just...I really hope she’ll actually turn up this time.”

Jody winced. “Yeah.” If Oizys kept to the same schedule, tonight would be when she killed. And if she didn’t come after Nick now...

But, fortunately--she hoped--their luck had finally changed. Less than an hour after they started searching the woods, Jody caught a glimpse of something ghosting towards them through the trees.

Nick spotted it when she did and paled a little, but kept moving, keeping to center of the moonlit path, where he was all too easy for a predator to see. Jody hung back, off the edge of the path, at least partially concealed by the trees. The goal was to be close enough to intervene when the time came, but far enough off that the goddess--demi-god, whatever--didn’t spot her and get spooked. The last thing she wanted was to accidentally ruin their chances of putting her down.

At last, Oizys stepped into the light, and Jody bit back a surprised gasp.

This time, the goddess wasn’t mimicking Sarah.

She’d chosen to appear as a near-perfect reflection of Nick, only covered in blood, eyes flinty and cold in a way that looked utterly alien on his face. She tilted her head and smiled a skin-crawlingly gentle smile as she crossed the street to join him.

“Hello, Nick,” Oizys said.

He stopped.

“It’s been a while, hasn’t it,” she said.

Jody inched along the treeline, parallel to the path, holding her breath and feeling her heart pounding in her ears. She was trying desperately to balance reaching them in time to keep everyone alive and not tipping the goddess off. Each and every step was nerve-wracking, because she knew that if she didn’t get it right, Nick would die.

“You know, I’m almost surprised to see you,” Oizys continued, when Nick remained silent. “After everything we did together…”

He flinched, and Jody could see his hand shift just a little, going for his stake.

Oizys seemed oblivious, at least for the moment. Stroke of luck, or Nick would probably be dead already. And Jody was so close now, just a few yards away, if he could just hold on a little bit longer…

“I understand it, you know,” Oizys said, with another kind and empty smile. “Believe me, Nick, I understand how cruel I was to you, and how you’re suffering now. But I’m not here to harm you. I’ve come to make amends.”

Shit. No. That was bad, that wasn’t--

“I was cruel to you before,” she said. “I know that. And I know that, after all this time, my cruelty has left its mark. All that pain, all that guilt, that icy rage you pretend you don’t feel, because it reminds you of me…”

He froze, the stake half-drawn and nowhere near ready to stab her.

She spotted it then, and shook her head. “Oh, Nick. Did you really think it would be that simple? I’m a part of you. I’ll always be a part of you. You can’t just stab me with that twig and make me go away. It doesn’t work like that.”

“Please,” he whispered, his voice cracking just a little. “Please, don’t…”

“But I told you,” she said. “I’m here to make amends. I’m here to bring you peace. I’m the only one who can. Remember?”

“No. No, I don’t want...you can’t...” he started, then trailed off. He looked uncertain. “This isn’t real. This isn’t now. I’m...I’m free. You’ve been gone for...for years. This isn’t...you aren’t…”

“You’ll never be free of me, Nick,” she said softly. She reached for his throat. For a moment, Jody thought she was going to choke him, and picked up her pace, no longer caring about making noise-- _can I get there fast enough, oh God I won’t get there fast enough_ \--but all Oizys did was rest her hand on the side of Nick’s neck. The gesture was almost _affectionate,_ which made the whole thing even creepier. “No matter how far you run.”

Nick shivered again and closed his eyes, the stake slipping from his fingers and dropping silently to the ground.

Oizys gave another unsettling, soft smile and her hand drifted down towards his chest.

But Jody launched herself the last few feet, and, by some miracle, made it just in time. She slammed bodily into the goddess, nearly knocking her into Nick, and stabbed her with all the force she could muster.

The stake slid between two of Oizys’ ribs with an audible squelching sound. The goddess screamed, her blood spurting everywhere, and flickered--from Nick’s face to Sean’s to Sarah’s to Owen’s back to Nick’s--until finally, with one last ripple, she solidified into Lorraine as she slid off the stake to fall dead at their feet.

 

* * *

 

Jody took Nick back to her place after they finished burning the body. They stopped on the way to get as much whiskey as the two of them could carry, along with something for Nick to change into. He’d gotten drenched in Oizys’ blood, and was pretty clearly freaked out by it. Given that Oizys-as-Nick-as-Demon had been covered with blood to start with, it wasn’t hard to guess why.

She knew she’d be fighting a massive hangover tomorrow when she was figuring out how to write these murders up without drawing attention from the FBI or a real hunter. But for now, she figured they both needed the booze more than enough to make it worthwhile.

Oh, hell. Writing this whole mess up was going to be _fun._ For a split second, she almost envied her dead friends. Sam and Dean and Bobby were able to skip town after hunting something and didn’t have to deal with any of the damn _paperwork._

Still. The paperwork and her inevitable hangover would be tomorrow’s problem. Tonight was for drowning their sorrows and celebrating a job well done.

“You holding up okay?” she asked Nick, after pouring them each a shot.

He shrugged. “Yeah. Fine.”

She arched an eyebrow at him. He sure as hell didn’t _seem_ fine. Between what Oizys had said, and the way he’d reacted to the blood, and how much of his scarring was now exposed...

He looked away. “She wasn’t...she wasn’t wrong,” he said, after another shot of whiskey.

“About your demon?” Jody guessed.

“About me,” he said. “I’ll never…I’ll never be free of him.”

“Maybe not,” she acknowledged. “But something tells me there’s other things you can’t escape, either.” She knew damn well that _she’d_ never be free of the memory of Owen’s blank eyes, staring at her across the living room, and his face all covered with…

She downed another shot herself.

“True,” he said. “That’s true.” He paused. “You know, I never really...this is the first time I’ve…”

It took her a minute to parse that, and realize…he hadn’t had anyone. Unspoken or otherwise, he hadn’t had _anyone_ to turn to about any of this. Not about the demon, at least. And, unless she was totally misreading him again, it sounded to her almost as if that wasn’t the only trauma he’d been keeping to himself.

If she understood him right, he’d been trying to cope, with everything--Sarah, and Demon, and _everything_ \--completely alone. “God. All of it?”

He nodded, and closed his eyes. “At first, I was...I was just...numb. And then...and then _he_ came, and I…”

“I get it,” she said. “Did it help? Finally opening up?” It had made a difference for her, every time--after Owen died the first time, she and Sean had gotten therapy together, and after the second, she’d had the group, plus Bobby and his boys from a distance…and even this time, before it turned into a monster thing, she had felt better after the meetings. But people grieved in different ways. Just ‘cause this worked for her didn’t mean it had for him.

He thought about it for a minute. “I don’t know,” he said. “I think...I think maybe, or it was starting to, at least, but then…”

“Christine died,” she finished for him.

“Christine died,” he echoed.

The two of them sat in silence for another minute or two, then Nick went on. “But Oizys _was_ right. I’ve been...I’ve been running ever since. For a lot of reasons, and some are...I mean, I don’t have anything to try and go back to, you know? And...and part...part of it’s because I...whenever...whenever anyone looks at me, I feel like they see…”

“Him?”

He nodded. “Most of the time, it’s all _I_ see,” he said, before finishing another shot.

Jody let that hang for a minute--because what the hell could she say to that--then said, “I don’t know if this’ll help, but...I don’t see him. I mean, I see the marks he left on you.” Very carefully, a hair’s breadth from touching, she indicated one of the scars on his face. “And I know...well, like you told me, your body was used to do horrible things. But...I mean, you and I just...we did good, you know? We killed a god together.”

He blinked, then actually smiled at her. “We killed a god together.”

It was funny--it was the same face Oizys had used, the same smile she’d copied from the demon, but at the same time, it wasn’t the same at all. Nick’s smile was soft, and sweet, and a little sad, and…

 _Down, girl._ However close she felt to him, after slaying a man-eating monster and sharing a few traumatic secrets, she _still_ barely knew Nick. Besides, just because _she_ was ready to move on and start dating again didn’t mean _he_ was. And, since she didn’t know him, she had no way of telling other than guesswork. Which hadn’t exactly been reliable for her in the past, where Nick was concerned. And, above and beyond all of that, this was probably not a conversation to have half-drunk on liquor and victory and grief.

No matter how much she liked his smile.

Fortunately, she was _just_ sober enough to listen to herself. “So, what are you going to do now?”

“Sorry?”

“You ready to stop running?” she asked. “Thinking of maybe sticking around here for a while?”

He hesitated, then shook his head, slowly. “I don’t...I don’t know. Probably not. But...I’m ready to start thinking about it, at least?”

Good thing she’d listened to herself.

“Well, it’s a start,” she said. “Baby steps.”

“Yeah.”

“And, you know,” she said, “if you do need someone to talk to...you don’t have to watch what details you leave out with me.”

He blinked, and looked up at her.

“You know, since you said it was helping, having people to talk to.” She smiled a little. “Someone who’s been there. Or somewhere in the ballpark, anyway.”

He considered that for a moment, then smiled back a little. “Yeah. That would...yeah.”

“So, wherever you go from here--stay in touch, promise?”

He nodded. “I promise.”

“Good,” Jody said. “...you are staying tonight, though. ‘Cause I’m pretty sure I’ve given you a little too much liquor to let you out.”

He blinked, and then smiled a little again. “Probably for the best, yeah.”

She smiled back, and poured each of them another shot. “To making it through, one day at a time.”

“One day at a time,” he echoed.

And it wasn’t perfect, and she knew she was still pretty damn close to the start of a long, hard road, but--they’d done good. They’d killed a god together. Life went on, despite all the horrible things that tried to stop it.

She had a long way to go, and she knew she’d probably backslide again, just like she did this summer, but it was a start. And, for the moment, giddy on victory and empathy and a little too much whiskey, the future looked almost bright.


End file.
